How to Record One's Voice on a Computer
For beginning computer users, the process of getting your voice might seem daunting, but for most PC models, it's not that hard. Finding the solution for recording your voice digitally has to do with what your goal is and what kind of result you want. Here are the steps to getting your voice into digital format using your desktop or laptop PC.
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Instructions
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Buy a microphone. For upscale recording (for music productions) you may want a high-grade ambient mic with a richer sound, but for basic projects, any mic will do. You can find basic utility microphones at any computer store.
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Set up your microphone. Plug your mic into the microphone jack of your computer (or into USB ports if it is a USB mic), and install any drivers necessary.
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Get your material ready. Prepare what you want to record, taking notes if you need to.
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Choose your recording software. If you have Windows 95 or 98, you already have a recording utility that you can use to record your voice. You can open it up from the start menu, and the controls are easy. If you don't have this utility, or you have a Mac, there are plenty of freeware sound recording programs out there, including multi-tracks, that you can download and use. Audacity is a popular sound program you can download for free, and there are a lot more out there.
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Activate your sound recording program and speak into the mic. Stop recording and do playback to troubleshoot and make sure you recorded correctly. It may take a few tries to get any bugs worked out. Sometimes the software does not have the correct access to the computer's audio system, and you may have to go in and mess around in "Control Panel," changing system audio settings until you get returns from microphone recording.
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Tips & Warnings
Although the controls for Windows built-in sound recorder are easy, there's a catch: the program only records 60 seconds of sound at a time. To change this limitation, you can keep inserting blank sound files into the program, tricking it into stretching out the available time, but if you can find a freeware program that suits you, it may be easier to record that way.
